DateTime/Date Field Woes

Ran into this today, my janky solution:

let today = new Date()
let string = today.toLocaleDateString()
let correct = new Date(string)

let today = new Date()
let string = today.toLocaleDateString()
let correct = new Date(string)

Have you tried inserting that date “correct” into a Date field at multiple times throughout the day?

No, I only tested within the last few hours or so. For reference, I’m in PST land

I’m in “we aren’t crazy people who change their clocks for no good reason twice a year land” :laughing:

Hi @Jeremy_Oglesby

There was a post earlier today along the same line, just slightly different or maybe not.

I don’t know if it will help, since it has to do with the date, but it’s the behaviour that’s interesting.

Here’s the link anyways:

Mary Kay

I found this to be slightly enlightening. I ran a test, and saw the same result that you did. Just for fun, I also retrieved the date back into JavaScript and sent the toString() version to the console again to see what would happen. (Top line is before posting to the field; bottom line is after retrieving it from the same field.)

I then converted the field to show the time (GMT disabled)…

I then ran my test script again. Now the field matches my local date and time, but look at the time spit out for the retrieved version. Still 7-22 like it was last time, but it’s exactly 7 hours ahead of my local time. In other words, the time retrieved is relative to GMT even though the field isn’t formatted to show it that way.

And now when I convert the field back to be date only, it keeps the last date that it had: 7/21.

I’ve got some slightly jumbled theories based on all of this, but long story short, I believe that a date passed from JavaScript to a date field is first converted from the user’s local time to GMT. That explains why, after a certain time of day, dates are stored one day ahead of the local day. This also explains why the date retrieved from that same field is relative to GMT.

I tested the suggestion from @Kamille_Parks, and the date stayed “local” after sending it to the field.

I’ll run the same test tomorrow morning and see what happens.

Good news! That fix that @Kamille_Parks posted does work at multiple times of day. I ran the same script just now, and it shows the correct date. What I found especially interesting with this workaround is that when the time option is active for the field, the time no longer becomes my local time, but it stays at 12am.

I ran into this while trying to sync a base with another, the column type was lost (date) and I was trying to copy the field value from a text column into a datetime column.

So far no luck, it’s not accurate. I believe it’s easier to copy the value as text into a text field and then run DATETIME_PARSE formula on another field to get it right.